


Polaroid picture

by darkmoore



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Torture, Whipping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-25
Updated: 2015-08-25
Packaged: 2018-04-17 04:47:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4652859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkmoore/pseuds/darkmoore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John is badly hurt and dying alone in a cell on some alien planet. His last thoughts are for Rodney...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Polaroid picture

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the "laceration" square on my h/c Bingo card. 
> 
> Many many thanks go to the amazing Brumeier, who is too modest to take any credit for all that she does to make these stories possible. She's a never ending source of encouragement, cheer-leading, comforting, hand holding and the occasional friendly kick in the behind to keep me going. I have no idea what I'd do without her support and her clever questions. Or her beta skills. Bru, you're awesome!1

Got a Polaroid picture in my wallet  
I’m not gonna tear it no I’m not gonna spoil it  
It’s an unspoken heartbreak  
A heartbroken handshake I’ll take with me where I go  
\- Passenger

 

John curled himself into a tight ball and sank onto a bit of dirty straw, carefully avoiding the cold and damp stone wall of his prison. He shivered and his teeth would have clattered if he hadn’t clenched his jaw so tightly; he just felt so damn cold. He was feverish with an infection and slightly lightheaded with the on-set of shock. His skin was filthy with dirt and grime and things John really didn’t want to think about, and it was no surprise that the wounds on his back had gotten infected so quickly. 

He hadn’t seen the whip they’d used on him – not really– but from the feel of it, the catch of little pieces of _something_ slicing his skin open to the bone, there’d likely been more involved than just the leather of the whip. John had seen whips like these before, on Earth. There were sharp pieces of bone and blunt pieces of metal, maybe wood and possibly shards of glass. These whips were designed to inflict as much damage as possible. That was how John knew that even though they had hit him no more than a couple of times, he wouldn’t survive for long. He’d lost a lot of blood – would have died of hypovolemic shock already if they’d kept at it – and the damage to his left kidney and the rapidly spreading infection would just finish him off. Already he felt his consciousness slipping again. 

John didn’t know how much time had passed since he’d been thrown into this hellhole but it couldn’t have been more than two days at most. They’d not whipped him right away, hadn’t even showed up until the damp cold and the thirst had gotten to him already. John had lost consciousness briefly at one point, but it couldn’t have been for long. It certainly wasn’t enough time for Rodney to find him. And now he didn’t have enough time left to get out alive. 

Carefully John took inventory. The pain of his back was almost unbearable, and if he hadn’t clung to consciousness quite so stubbornly, John knew he’d likely be dead already. Not that it mattered much in the long run. An hour or two didn’t make that much of a difference. John felt sorry for not getting the chance to say goodbye to Rodney. For hurting him, by dying on a fucking alien planet, without having told him one last time that he loved him. All he had left now, in the last minutes of his life, were his memories of how happy they’d been. 

And the picture. 

The one he had stuffed into the hidden pocket of his pants, his treasure, his talisman. John fumbled for a moment, his fingers uncooperative and clumsy, his body sluggish with fever and exhaustion and shock, but then he held it. It was a Polaroid of him and Rodney, taken on one of their rare trips to Earth, and Rodney had joked that he’d thought Polaroids had died out already. It was crumpled and barely visible any more but in it, he and Rodney had smiled at each other, happy and as carefree as could be under the circumstances. 

“I’m sorry I didn’t make it out of here alive, buddy,” John murmured, and traced the outline of Rodney’s face with a shaking finger. His vision started to blur, his heart racing as another violent shiver wracked his body. Then the darkness around him started to close in, the cold gripping his feverish, hurting body in a tight grip. The Polaroid slipped from his fingers and then there was nothing.

* * *

To say John was surprised he woke up again would be the understatement of the century. The sluggish feeling of heavy duty painkillers was familiar, as was the feeling of soreness in his throat from the tracheal tube that had likely been removed not too long ago when they’d started to wean him off the drugs that had kept him under. He was lying on his back, head raised, a CVL in the right side of his neck, various cables attached to the rest of his body.

If all of that hadn’t told him it’d been a close call, the look on Rodney’s face would have. Rodney was sitting next to his bed, looking pale and lost. When John focused on him, he smiled a watery smile and leaned forward to gently take John’s hand in his. 

“Hey! There you are,” Rodney said in a low, trembling voice. It sounded as if he was afraid to spook John. “I’m glad you’re awake. I was beginning to think that Carson was wrong and you’d never wake up again. I still don’t trust his Voodoo.” It was clearly meant as a joke but sounded more like Rodney was about to cry any moment now. 

John smiled at him. “Hey, buddy, what happened?” he asked. He’d been convinced he’d die, alone in that cell. That this time his team would be too late to save him. “I kinda thought I’d be dead.”

Rodney flinched at John’s words and the tears that had been pooling in his eyes spilled over. He wiped them away with a jerky, angry movement and cleared his throat. “You were. I mean, er, you coded on the way back here. In the ‘jumper. I … you … I lost you. You were dead and then … then they pulled you back just … barely and … there was so much blood. Your back was … I’ve never seen so much damage before and … you wouldn’t stop bleeding and you were all …” Rodney’s voice broke and he fought for control. 

John wanted nothing more than to hold him and comfort him and tell him everything would be alright but he was in no condition to do that at the moment. So he settled for squeezing Rodney’s hand and offering an apology. “I’m sorry, Rodney.” John said. Sorry for scaring him, sorry for almost dying and leaving him alone. Sorry for almost breaking his promise that they’d die of old age, together. 

Rodney huffed. “Don’t be ridiculous. It’s hardly your fault that some natives with the collective IQ of a gnat took offense at the color of your eyes or something. They weren’t exactly detailed about it when Lorne’s team killed them for what they did to you.” He took a deep breath and then focused his gaze onto their joint hands, avoiding John’s eyes. “Carter used the Tok’ra healing device on your back, but there was still scarring. Your kidney’s fine, though. Carson kept you under for two days to make sure there won’t be any problems from the blood loss and infection. I’ll … I’ll go get him now so he can explain everything. I’m sorry we didn’t get to you sooner.” Rodney stood.

He would have pulled away and left if John hadn’t grabbed his forearm and held on. “I’m still alive because of you, Rodney,” John reminded him softly and tugged gently until Rodney leaned over him and John could press a gentle, chaste kiss to his mouth. “I don’t care about scars. I got to come back to you, nothing else is important.”

Rodney smiled at him and pulled something out of the back pocket of his pants. When he placed it carefully onto John’s bed, right next to his hand, John recognized it: a crumpled Polaroid picture that showed him and Rodney, happy. The last thing John had seen before he’d lost consciousness, convinced he’d die. Rodney had held onto it for him. 

“I’ll go get Carson now. Try to rest a bit, I’ll come back later,” Rodney said with a soft smile and pressed a gentle kiss onto the top of John’s head. 

John watched him go and thought that he was a pretty lucky guy after all.


End file.
